transport: UFO reports and disinformation

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

Censorship, counter-intelligence, cover-ups and disinformation have long been used to protect national security secrets. In the era of flight, governments began using these techniques to protect secret aerial objects, sometimes even suggesting UFO reports were caused by alien spacecraft rather than top-secret aircraft. As early as 1942, US officials took steps to cover up their advances in jet plane technology, and by 1945 a widespread censorship campaign covered-up the fact that Japan's intercontinental balloons were reaching the US west coast, briefly halting plutonium production and killing a handful of civilians. In 1947, the Army publicly claimed that unusual debris recovered by Roswel…

Evidence: 76 • authority: 72

Debris found by a rancher in 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico, has become the basis for UFO conspiracy theories alleging that the United States military recovered a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft. After metallic and rubber debris was recovered by Roswell Army Air Field personnel, the United States Army Air Forces announced possession of a "flying disc". This announcement made international headlines, but was retracted within a day. In reality, the debris was from a complex uncrewed military balloon train, consisting of linked balloons and assorted equipment, operated from the nearby Alamogordo Army Air Field as part of the top-secret Project Mogul, a program intended to detect Soviet nucl…

Evidence: 47 • authority: 72

Jesse Antoine Marcel Sr. (May 27, 1907 – June 23, 1986) was a major in the United States Air Force (later a lieutenant colonel in the Reserves) who helped administer Operation Crossroads, the 1946 atom bomb tests at the Bikini Atoll. Marcel was the first military officer tasked with investigating the 1947 Roswell incident, where supposed "flying disc" debris was later identified as pieces of a weather balloon. The incident was largely forgotten until 1978, when Marcel, then retired from the military, told ufologist Stanton Friedman that he believed the Roswell debris was extraterrestrial.

Evidence: 45 • authority: 72

The Roswell Incident is a 1980 book by Charles Berlitz and William Moore. The book helped to popularize stories of unusual debris recovered in 1947 by personnel of the Roswell Army Air Field.

Evidence: 25 • authority: 72

In 1947, from June to July, a rash of reported sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the United States were widely publicized by the news media. The craze began on June 24, when media nationwide reported civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold's story of witnessing disc-shaped objects which headline writers dubbed "Flying Saucers". Such reports quickly spread throughout the United States; historians would later chronicle at least 800 "copycat" reports in subsequent weeks, while other sources estimate the reports may have numbered in the thousands. Reports peaked on July 7. After numerous hoaxes and mistaken identifications, the disc reports largely subsided by July 10. Mainstream sources…

Evidence: — • authority: 80

Department of the Air Force. FY 1995 Budget Estimates Submitted to Congress February 1994. Reserve Personnel, Air Force

Evidence: — • authority: 80

Department of the Air Force. FY 1995 Budget Estimates Submitted to Congress February 1994. Military Personnel, Air Force

Evidence: — • authority: 72

An unidentified flying object (UFO) is an object or phenomenon seen in the sky but not yet identified or explained. The term was coined when United States Air Force (USAF) investigations into flying saucers found too broad a range of shapes reported to consider them all saucers or discs. UFOs are also known as unidentified aerial phenomena or unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs). Upon investigation, most UFOs are identified as known objects, natural phenomena, hoaxes, or mirages, while a small number remain unexplained. While unusual sightings in the sky have been reported since at least the 3rd century BC, UFOs became culturally prominent after World War II, escalating during the Space…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Since 1947, United States media coverage has speculated that UFO reports might be linked to atomic sites. In June 1947, the start of the Cold War led to domestic UFO reports being taken seriously by both military and media. On July 6, 1947, media nationwide claimed that the ongoing "flying saucer" craze was linked to "transmutation of atomic energy", though experts later dismissed that claim as gibberish. In 1968, Air Force debunker J. Allen Hynek, in the wake of controversy over his claim that a UFO report had been caused by swamp gas, floated the suggestion that reports might be tied to the atomic phenomenon. By the 1990s, legends had spread of UFOs interfering with a missile test and tak…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

On 7 January 1948, 25-year-old Captain Thomas F. Mantell, a Kentucky Air National Guard pilot, died when the P-51 Mustang fighter plane he was piloting crashed near Franklin, Kentucky, United States, after being sent in pursuit of an unidentified flying object (UFO). Pursuing the object in a steep climb and disregarding suggestions to level his altitude, Mantell lost consciousness at high altitude from lack of oxygen; his plane went into a downward spiral and crashed. The incident was among the most publicized early UFO reports. Later investigation by Edward J. Ruppelt, Head of United States Air Force's Project Blue Book found that observations from an airforce base control tower, particula…